Sat, 4 July 2009  I recently did an interview with Billy from The Scotsman's Under the Radar blog (amongst other venerable organs) which took the form of an interesting chat about the current tension between bloggers and professional journalists. He has played off my opinions against those of his friend Mike Diver, who is currently the online editor for (the excellent) Clash magazine. The whole thing can be found here, along with plenty of comments from Ally and Milo, professional writers from around these parts, and myself and Tart, on the side of the bloggers. The comments on that thread It's an interesting debate, frankly, and one which, as a blogger with aspirations, as opposed to someone who is happy to simply chat for the sake of it, I have applied a fair deal of thought to. Ultimately, though, I think it is something of a false dichotomy: some of the best reporters keep blogs as ways of expressing themselves outwith the constraints of the editorial policy of whatever rag pays their wages and a lot of the best bloggers end up parlaying their writing skills into professional careers in journalism. And of either side there is a vast amount of detritus, professional and amateur. So, yes, the Toad once again holds forth passionately on subjects he knows far too little about and may in general be making a fool of himself once more. The, erm, songs are good though. 01. Billy Bragg - Which Side Are You On? (03.17) Comments[0] |
